


Ice Baby

by elixirsoflife



Series: fade to black [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Apparently he lives and breathes it, Community: HPFT, F/M, Fluff and Angst, How Do I Tag, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, James likes ice hockey, Light Angst, Lily figure skates, M/M, Mostly fluff though, Time Skips, i don't know why
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 11:31:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13856913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elixirsoflife/pseuds/elixirsoflife
Summary: In his defence, James never expected to meet his soulmate at thirteen minutes past eleven on a Sunday morning when he’s aiming a puck at Sirius’ balls.Or:call me sweetheart again and I'll punch you in the throat.





	Ice Baby

**Author's Note:**

> written for and placed 2nd in the soulmate au and random prompt challenge. prompts: tattoo of first words spoken to each other &; "please put me down, it's just a sprained ankle."
> 
> i sincerely apologise for the fic ahead. i have no idea what possessed me when i wrote it. your girl knows nothing about either ice hockey or figure skating, but somehow i vomited 15k+ words of it?? i contemplated breaking it into two, but the cut-off point would split it awkwardly into like 6k and 10k so i just left it?? anyways, please accept this pitiful thing and holler at me in the comments idk
> 
> (also lol yes the title comes from vanilla ice i AM A MESS)

In his defence, James never expected to meet his soulmate at thirteen minutes past eleven on a Sunday morning when he’s aiming a puck at Sirius’ balls.

* * *

At three years old, James hurtles into nursery on short, chubby legs, hair wild and eyes manic as he struggles to drink in the room in all its splash-dash, Balamory-esque glory. It rises and falls with noise – messy tears, carefree laughter, helpless parents reluctantly prying their children off them a finger at a time – and for an only child, it’s quite possibly the most exquisite thing he has ever seen. He can’t even remember to say goodbye to his mother before he dives right in.

Nursery is a mess of sticky fingers dipped in paint, furrowed eyebrows as shaky hands balance stacks of Lego, and smiling sweetly at teachers who wrestle crayons away from him before he can gleefully unleash them on mostly pristine walls. It’s sitting criss-cross-apple-sauce on the floor, raking his nails along the grooves of the uncomfortable carpet as they chant songs in Circle Time; it’s curiously smashing Pritt sticks of glue against the low tables; it’s racing across the playground, stumbling and scraping his knees so that the red inside him creeps out to peek at the world, and then shrugging it off because there are more important things to do.

It’s being put in the Naughty Corner when he pours his milk into the sandpit so he can build himself a castle and then turning to the boy sulking beside him with a toothy beam.

“Hello!” he exclaims happily despite the stern look being levelled his way by the teacher. “My name is James Fleamont Potter and I’m three years old, but I’m going to be four soon, and I like painting and singing and riding on the bikes.”

The boy eyes him distastefully. “Fleamont is a stupid name.”

“ _Sirius!”_ comes their teacher’s immediate reprimand. “We don’t say things like that to our friends, do we?”

“He’s not my friend,” the boy mumbles, folding his arms petulantly. “His name is stupid.”

James, however, is far from put off. He shrugs and says earnestly, “It _is_ a bit stupid, but it’s okay. Sirius is a lot more stupid than mine.”

The boy narrows his eyes suspiciously. “Did you call my name stupid?”

“Yeah.” He cocks his head to the side. “Do you want to play cars with me?”

He considers it for a moment before nodding with a careless, “Yep,” and just like that their friendship is cemented for life.

* * *

Sirius is the first person he shows his words to, sticking out a podgy left arm with pride, paint-splattered school jumper pushed up to his elbows. The boy tilts his head to the side, pokes a pink tongue out between two cherry-red lips, hums contemplatively. They’re still rusty when it comes to reading, their mouths clumsy around the vowels and consonants, sounding out each word syllable by syllable before hastily stitching them together with inexpert tongues.

Nevertheless, there’s something significant about this moment in the playground, the weak February sun filtering through clouds of grey. Kids scream all around them, but for a moment, these two wild boys are still, pressing their bare arms against each other, snow white against tawny brown, eyes glued to the faint looping script embedded into their skins.

“Mummy says they were made for me,” James explains, a little breathless at the idea of something he still can’t possibly understand. “That they used to be with me and now they’re not, but one day, we will be again. That they’re my best friend.”

Sirius scrunches his nose up at that. “No, they’re not. I thought _I’m_ your best friend.”

“You are,” he says with round eyes. They’re already big and the circular glasses that rest on his nose magnifies them tenfold, giving him the look of a little grasshopper. “And I’m yours.”

There’s a small, satisfied smile on his face at that. He nods with slight approval. “Forever and ever. No matter what happens okay?”

They seal the promise with a handshake.

Later, James will learn how to translate the curves and flicks on pages in front of him into words, let them flow off his tongue effortlessly, a little lisp lingering about the edges of his youth. He’ll push up the sleeve of his top and stare hard at the words pressed into his soul.

_Call me sweetheart again and I’ll punch you in the throat._

* * *

Primary school passes in a haze like that of nursery.

Looking back, all he remembers are impossibly tall teachers, huge exercise books spilled over pine tables, kicking a football in the hastily chalked parameters of the pitch, or the gratifying giggles of his classmates after he’s clowned around like the joker he is. They’re years of bliss, all summer and no rain: playing Twister at Golden Time, digging into rainbow cake at lunch, charming the dinner ladies with his toothy smile and curly hair. Towards the end of Year Six, there’s a whisper of crushes, but honestly, James has never had much interest in that sort of thing so he shrugs off the unsubtle stares and sneaks off with Sirius to wherever they’ve chosen to wreak havoc.

Besides, no one in his classes have met their soulmate yet so it’s not like there’s any _point_ to it all. The only vaguely romantic thing he does is scream absurd sentences at his friends, each one crazier than the last, and then they all pretend to swoon as if the words are printed on their arms. The teachers are quick to frown, chide them for getting into such a dangerous habit because it’s custom to greet someone with your name to make life easier –

But anyone who’s glanced at James’ arm knows that custom and romance are pretty much dead when it comes to him so there’s not much they can do to rein him in.

“Hi sweetheart,” Sirius says when James opens his front door to see his best friend on the other side. He tosses a smirk – a literal _smirk_ , even at the tender age of eleven – at his exposed arm. “You have any Coke in the house?”

“No,” James says, even though they do and makes to close the door. When Sirius slips past, he heaves a rather long and fake sigh, steps aside to let him in properly, and then kicks it shut. “Get me some lemonade while you get yours.”

“No,” he shoots back, even though they both know he will. “Where’s Dad?”

After five years of hearing Sirius refer to Mr Potter that way, James doesn’t even bat an eye. He shrugs. “Think he’s about to watch a match in the family room.”

“Football?”

“Probably.”

It turns out that it isn’t football, Mr Potter flicking through the channels on their widescreen tv until he lands on something that – well, actually seems a lot cooler to James if he’s being honest. He perches his butt on the edge of the sofa, pushes his glasses all the way up to the bridge of his nose, watches bulky figures tear across ice furiously. Legs powerful, passes violent and sharp, movements crass and forceful and _beautiful._ He’s always liked football, felt some ease in running up and down tarmac, lazily passing the ball here and there, but this – this is on a whole new _level_. His lips part, entranced.

Mr Potter notices the awe on his face and makes a note of it. Days later, he drops James off to his first practice, a Bambi on ice with a rookie team, Sirius wobbling determinedly beside him because he’ll be damned if James does something without him this summer. The ice is smooth underneath their skates, somewhat terrifying, but the second James wraps his fingers around a hockey stick, he suddenly feels alive.

James doesn’t know it yet, but this is the moment that changes the rest of his life.

* * *

They enter secondary school and quickly clamber up the unofficial ranks of Year Sevens to sit at the top. They’re smart and they’re funny and they’re popular, charming in a way that amuses the teachers and appeals to the students and makes the upperclassmen roll their eyes because _there’s always one, isn’t there_. If you’re young enough, you might even find them good looking, even if James is still somewhat stuck in his grasshopper phase with those awful glasses of his.

He divides his time between school, the rink and home, though anyone can see that the second is practically the latter anyways. He lives and breathes ice hockey, itches to tighten his skates and glide across the smooth surface, training with a blind enthusiasm. Sirius is lazier in his efforts, but like many things he attempts, is still unfairly good at it and enjoys the time it kills. The two are _those guys_ everyone knows: approachable but somewhat untouchable and the best of buds.

Halfway through Year Nine, a boy with sandy hair and tired eyes transfers into their classes. One day, Sirius asks him for a pen; he ends up with a tattoo of black on his wrist and a panic attack instead. They’re fated to be, but Sirius isn’t ready and he isn’t _fucking gay, I’m a Black goddamn it_ , though he stares at Lupin with soft eyes when he thinks no one is watching and conveniently forgets to bring a pen to English and picks Remus for his team in P.E.

James doesn’t meet his soulmate, but he does comfort Sirius about his. Does easily befriend the quiet boy who buries himself in books, does reassure his best friend that there’s nothing wrong with him, that he’s not unnatural, that it doesn’t matter one effing bit whether his name is Black or White or Fuchsia Pink, he likes who he likes and that’s that.

He doesn’t meet his soulmate, but he does meet a girl called Mary who has chocolate drop eyes and mahogany skin and a soft tummy that his fingers brush over as he kisses her lazily in her bedroom.

He doesn’t meet his soulmate, but he does hold Mary’s hand and shower her with his mum’s desserts and takes her on dates to the park, autumn leaves settling in her thick curls and gentle drops of rain catching on her lashes. He doesn’t meet his soulmate, but he does see Mary in the stands of each of his amateur games, does hear her cheer wildly and claim he’s as good as a pro when he collapses next to her, sweating buckets and exhausted from the win. He doesn’t meet his soulmate, but he does get suspended briefly after beating up someone for bullying Mary about her weight, and he does feel his heart break a little when he realises they’re not working anymore, that it’s different to love someone at fourteen years old than at sixteen because he was just a kid back then, that he probably still is.

* * *

By the time he’s in university, James has played ice hockey for over seven years and damn if he isn’t good at it. He practices hard, harder than Sirius probably ever did, and the results show in his performances. He rises through ranks, leagues, making a little bit of a name for himself – even scores himself a nice little scholarship for uni, joins their professional team and slots right in. He’s the sort of boy who is _made_ for this kind of thing: confident, charismatic and just a little bit cocky with his cheek-in-tongue humour.

(Tall too, now that he’s finally had his growth spurt and matured out of his grasshopper phase – with the aid of some handy contacts – into someone who isn’t half-attractive.)

“So are we going home for winter or what?” Sirius asks, leaning back in his seat like he’s the king of the goddamn world. He tilts his head to watch James secure his skates. “Mum’s been asking me about it even though it’s years away.”

“You spoke to Mum?”

“I speak to her, like, every day,” Sirius scoffs. “Whereas you haven’t even called her once this week. Some son _you_ are.”

James rolls his eyes. “Yeah, well, some people don’t need to speak to their mum thirty minutes before they go to sleep every night.”

“Not _every_ night.” A sudden wicked smile. “Not last night.”

The faint acrid taste of vomit gently rises in James’ throat. He mimes retching. “I do not need to know what you and Remus do in your spare time, _fucking hell._ I eat breakfast with the guy on Mondays.”

“Breakfast isn’t the only thing that’s – “

“Okay,” James says loudly, rising to his feet. When he’s in full uniform, he’s several inches taller than Sirius, even when the other is standing up, and damn if it doesn’t make him feel good. Right now though, the usual sense of satisfaction is overpowered by his need to escape Sirius’ lewd commentary about his late night activities. Knowing him, he would actually provide a play by play account if given the chance. “I’m going to go warm up now. You stay here and repent.”

Sirius merely smirks. “Can’t help it if I have good game, Potter.”

“You literally didn’t speak to him for eight months after you first met.”

“And yet Remus is now madly in love with me.”

“Poor boy,” James winces as he backs away. “He must’ve been dropped _hard_ as a baby.” Before Sirius can leap forward to tackle him, he steps onto the ice and spins away.

Instantly, there’s a rush of adrenaline that _soars_ through him, bubbling up from the pits of his stomach and shooting through his veins like electricity. His skates tear through ice, sharp and smooth, his legs purposeful and powerful. Moments like this, when he first steps onto the rink and just lets himself loose, cannot be beaten by anything in the world. Nothing can bring him down, not even the catcalls and teasing jeers from his teammates off to the side.

He comes to a stop in the middle of the ice, breaths hard, mouth curled into a small grin.

“Alright, Potter,” comes the appreciative comment from the captain as he skates forward to meet him. His movements are slow and leisurely, a stark contrast to the furious pace James prefers even when there’s no one to beat to the puck. The cage of his helmet is up, his quiet smile on full display. “Excited, are we?”

“Always,” James replies. It’s not even a lie.

“That’s the sort of attitude I’m looking for.” Benjy indulges in another smile before he whips around, shards of ice scattering around like bullets, and yells, “The rest of you fuckers best follow suit and get on the damn rink as well! Come on people, we don’t have all fucking day!”

There’s immediate grumbling and the clatter of movement as a number of boys clamber out of the bleachers, burly and broad-shouldered, with Sirius in the background calling teasingly, “Damn, Benjy. So _authoritative._ ”

“Shut the fuck up, Black.”

* * *

Practice is practice.

It’s messy and sometimes violent, but also exhilarating and fast-paced and fucking _fun_ so James can’t really complain. He’s constantly moving, his stick slapping against the ice, his breath rattling in his chest and against the cage of his helmet, a sharp staccato in his ears. Sweat trickles down his back, sticking his uniform to his skin underneath the insistent weight of his padding.

He runs through the drills, competitive and cocky, shoulders jokingly bumping into his teammates’. Practice is a strange mix between serious work and light-hearted banter – some, like James, honestly live, breathe and shit the sport, but others are more casual with their love and can’t quite bring their all this early on a Sunday morning. The attitudes mix, electric, and James fucking _loves_ it. This is his kingdom and these are his people.

Off to the side, Sirius slouches in his seat and flips idly through his textbooks. No one bats an eye at him; it’s common knowledge that he’s practically James’ shadow. When one is practicing his shots, the other can be counted on to sit off to the side, either shouting comments to throw them off their game or absorbed in whatever he brought to entertain himself.

James skates over, breathing hard. “Hey, after this, do you want to go to KFC? I could kill for a Zinger burger meal, not gonna lie.”

“Yeah, sure.” Sirius leans back, stretching his arms out high above his head. “When’s practice over?”

“Don’t know. When Benjy says it is, I suppose.”

“Helpful,” he deadpans. He sits up and peers over James’ shoulder. “Hey, Fenwick! When’s practice over? I’m hungry!”

Benjy looks over from where he’s analysing Dearborn’s performance. “So fuck off then,” he says with a roll of his eyes. “You’re not even on the team.”

“That’s because my skills would scare the rest of the team off,” replies Sirius in a rather matter-of-fact manner. “Little old James here can’t even _dream_ of being on my level.”

James scoffs and punches him on the shoulder. “As if.”

“You know I’m better than you, sweetheart.”

“I know you’re delusional, you mean.”

He clucks his tongue with a mournful shake of his head. “Ah. Denial. I suppose it really isn’t just a river in Egypt. What a shame.”

“Honestly fuck off.”

And then somewhere between their bickering and the encouraging crows of Avery and Brookstanton as they leap on any opportunity to stay distracted from what they’re supposed to be doing, Sirius ends up on the ice, an old pair of skates on his feet – (“Jesus Christ, what the everliving fuck _died_ in here?” he gags, holding the monstrosity he’s borrowed from Thomas as far away from himself as possible.) – instead of fucking off like his best friend told him to do.

The uniform he’s wriggled himself into consists of bits and pieces the team have loaned him, shark-like smirks on their faces at the twist in events, and he looks a bit like he’s walked into some second-hand thrift shop and grabbed at everything blindly. From the proud tilt of his chin, however, one would think he’s about to walk the runway for Gucci.

“Hit me with it,” he says, staring James down from all the way across the ice.

Smirking, James lines the curve of his stick up with the puck, squints towards the general area of Sirius’ crotch, and swings his arm back determinedly –

And then a cough cuts him short.

“Ahem.”

The cough comes again. James twists around to see a group of girls, arms crossed, mouths turned down, skates fancier than anything he’s ever seen before. He feels himself freeze along with the rest of his team, brain short-circuiting. His intelligent mind searches for a command, only to settle on: _what – girls – what._

Brilliant.

“What are you all doing here?”

The question comes from the girl at the forefront and is not so much a question as a demand. It’s probably this that snaps most of them out of their daze. Benjy skates forward, raising one eyebrow in a manner James recognises from when he first joined the team. He’s dubbed it as the _show me some fucking respect, brat, and we’ll get along_ look.

“Practicing,” he says. “Clearly.”

Nostrils flare in annoyance; the girl lifts her chin defiantly. “Yes, well, we’ve booked the rink at this time, so you’re going to have to stop. Clearly.”

Uh-oh.

James glances at Benjy just in time to see his _show me some fucking respect, brat, and we’ll get along_ look transform into the _you’re pissing me the fuck off, brat, so you should probably stop_ face. It is, he has no shame in admitting, nothing short of terrifying.

“Clearly not if we’re on the rink right now,” Benjy says, voice dangerously soft. There’s a collective wince around the team. “You girls can come back in an hour.”

“ _Or_ ,” says the girl waspishly, “we can stay right here and _you guys_ can leave. You’ve probably been here all morning anyways so.” She punctuates this with a smile that’s sweeter than honey and sharper than knives. A little, humourless giggle accompanies her shrug.

“This is a team practice,” Benjy begins.

“Yes, well, _we_ need to practice too,” comes the immediate rebuttal. “And besides, let’s be honest, who wants to see a bunch of sweaty boys slam each other into the side of the rink anyway?”

One of the girls stirs. “Cat, maybe we should…”

“Leave,” James interrupts, voice hard. “Maybe you should leave.”

Ordinarily, he likes to think he’s a nice guy. Off the rink, he’s only been in a grand total of three physical fights so far in his life – once when someone was bullying his ex-girlfriend, once when Sirius’ younger brother publicly outed him, and once when he got a bit drunk at a party and ended up breaking Severus Snape’s nose over an altercation about Chemistry experiments and lukewarm beer – and he’s generally rather well-liked. He knows this and doesn’t think it’s egotistical of him to acknowledge that he’s fairly popular, mostly because he’s just an easy-going bloke.

But you can’t just insult hockey to his face and expect him not to react.

It’s, like, wired in his genetic code. Somewhere inside him, there’s adenine and thymine pressed tight against each other to raise his blood pressure whenever anyone attacks the one thing that brings him happiness in this cruel, cruel world. So the dazed look leaves his eyes and his mouth presses flat, shoulders thrown back challengingly as he stares down this Cat, goading her to refuse.

Before she can say anything, a new figure appears on the rink, gliding towards them effortlessly. James barely spares her a glance – red hair, black clothes, killer legs – even as she comes to a halt next to them and asks one of her friends what’s going on.

Their ringleader, Cat, takes it upon herself to bite out, “They’re not leaving the damn rink even though it’s _our_ turn on it.”

Benjy scoffs, “Honestly, do you _hear_ how fucking ridiculous you sound? We’re not fucking five years old, just wait your damn turn.”

“Um, excuse me?” the newcomer says, eyebrows raised. “Who do you think you’re speaking to like that?”

James rolls his eyes before pinning them on her. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he writes and files away a note that this girl is actually rather pretty. Perhaps it is even this that prompts him to whip out his most infuriating smirk, dripping arrogance as he says, “Sweetheart, just make it easier for all of us and get off the rink, okay? We’re at practice, that’s the end of it.”

There’s a heartbeat of furious silence.

And then the girl snaps, “ _Call me sweetheart again and I’ll punch you in the throat.”_

Well, shit.

* * *

His soulmate's name is Lily Evans.

She's a first year undergraduate like him and has hair that's been kissed by the sun; her mouth burns as harsh as it too which James quickly finds out. She likes to figure skate in her free time and is fairly good at it although she's much better at holding grudges. Maybe it's because James was in maximum Cocky Ice Hockey Bro Mode when they met, or maybe it's because Sirius nearly collapsed with laughter the second Lily's tongue sent a ripple of black across James' forearm. 

("Holy shit, it's her!" he manages to choke out before throwing himself to the floor.)

It's probably both.

But she goes by Lily Anne Evans and the name haunts his every waking moment because God, this is everything he's looked forward to since he was a child and his mum first introduced the concept of soulmates to him. He can't even bring himself to be disheartened by the ferocity of her glare whenever they meet. Because try as she might to ignore him, he's her soulmate and she is his and though they haven't fallen together as easy as counting to one, two, three, the universe has paired them up for a reason.

Of course, James probably doesn't help his case by whipping out every last infuriating inch of him whenever he's in her presence. It's almost as if he's been programmed to irritate the shit out of her.

"We meet again, Evans," he says dramatically as he drops onto a cheap plastic stool that's probably seen better days. The smell of coffee permeates the air, heavy and bitter, underscored with the sweetness of cream. Around them, the campus café bustles with mid-afternoon life. "What a coincidence."

"I work here," she says with a flat, unimpressed look, "and you've known that for at least two weeks now."

He sends her a demure smile. "Been keeping track, have you?"

"Don't flatter yourself."

"Well, it looks like I won't have to considering you're already beating me to it."

The glare she delivers is nothing sort of acidic. If James was made of softer stuff, he might even feel it eat away at his flesh. As it is, he can be notoriously thick-skinned when he puts his mind to it so he merely smiles again.

Lily scowls. "I don't _exist_ just to give you a fucking ego boost," she hisses and jabs the black lettering on her exposed forearm. "This means nothing."

But of course, that's not true. Because the tattoos that are inked into their wrists mean _everything_ in this world and everything to James.

He lets out a small hum. "Well, if you're not up to give me that, how about a coffee instead?"

She lobs her pen at his forehead first.

* * *

There is a small but growing minority of people who vehemently oppose the concept of soulmates. It’s not something that science is yet able to fully explain, not something that can be pinpointed to a chain of bases in the genetic code and identified as the source of the letters on a human’s forearm. Technically, there’s nothing to say that a person _needs_ their soulmate to function, or that they’re honestly the best possible match currently on earth for an individual. When it really boils down to it, they’re simply words on skin that darken when spoken by a specific person due to some unexplained chemical reaction of sort.

Fate is not part of the equation here.

James begs to disagree. There’s no way that fate doesn’t play a part in this tale because Lily Anne Evans is suddenly _everywhere_ he goes where before she didn’t even register in his peripheries.

She’s in the campus café that he admittedly hangs about in hopes of catching her. She’s in the Chemistry building despite having enrolled on the English Literature course and in the same student halls as him, a mere three floors down. They run into each other when shopping in the city centre, collide shoulders when he’s in Blackwell’s trying to find a copy of this fucking textbook that just _can’t_ be provided online, spot each other across the floor when out on meals with their respective group of friends. He sees her on the street, sees her in various pubs and clubs, sees her whenever he’s trudging off the rink after practice, sweaty and dirty and his muscles aching.

He sees her, he sees her, he sees her.

Most of the time, she pointedly ignores him until he lays on _just_ the right amount of smugness to slash open her armour and hack away at her last nerve.

“Piss off,” she informs him, her sharp eyes falling into slits. James has discovered that he rather likes her eyes. Likes the vivid hue of green, likes their angular cat-like grace, likes the way her eyelashes brush against the freckle just under them, thick with mascara. “I’m busy.”

He grins, pulling a fat folder out of his bag. “I haven’t even said anything yet.”

“But you will,” she hisses. “And I have this entire fucking chapter to read so I really can’t be bothered dealing with all –“ She gestures wildly at his entire body. “ – this.”

“Luckily for you, I also have work to do,” he says. “So you won’t have to deal with anything, sweetheart.”

“Call me that again and I’ll – “

“Punch me in the throat?” He grins and tugs up the sleeve of his turtleneck to display his words to the world. “Trust me, I know.”

“And yet you still don’t get it.”

He shrugs. “I’m a slow learner, I suppose.”

Unamused, Lily stares at him, the tired skin around her eyes tightening in barely concealed frustration. He meets it inch for inch until finally, her nostrils flare in one last display of annoyance and she pointedly flips over to the next page of the mammoth of a book in front of her.

The smile that tugs on James’ lips is not so much triumphant as it is fond; his chest swells with the emotion, lighter than the air his lungs expand with, pleasant and warm. Maybe his brain has been coded to automatically find the little ridges in Lily Evans that prickle her nerves, but he can’t deny that there’s something _blissful_ about sitting with her in a stuffy library on a freezing autumn afternoon, the smell of her cold coffee pungent in the air, the two of them silent for once in their lives. He feels like something has slotted into place somewhere inside him, a little jigsaw piece he wasn’t even aware didn’t quite fit, and a wave of peace spreads through him like a blush.

Eyebrows furrowed, Lily marks a line with a thin plastic marker. “Stop staring at me.”

On any other day, he might’ve responded with a cheesy, only half-joking _but you’re so beautiful_ that’s sure to get on her nerves, or a quip of how she’s very much the opposite. But the peaceful feeling persists, making him feel weightless, so his smile deepens briefly before he directs it at his latest note of lectures.

They stay like that in the library for three hours.

* * *

 

Technically, there’s no practice scheduled for today.

Technically, Benjy told them all to take advantage of this small rest he’s granted them because there’s a game on the horizon and he’s about to make them regret ever being born soon enough, he promises, so the boys might as well appreciate functioning bodies while they can. Technically, James is supposed to crash in his flat with Pettigrew or one of the other boys until Sirius texts him that it’s safe to come over to the studio he rents with Remus to binge watch Game of Thrones since Remus has never seen it before and he’s supposed to gorge himself on homemade nachos while he pretends like his best friends knock him sick with their subtle affection for each other.

But he’s had a shit as fuck day since he’s handed in one of his assignments late – worth 20 fucking percent of the final grade for that unit –and he’s going to get penalised for something that probably wasn’t up to scratch in the first place and he didn’t understand a single word of his two hour Chemistry for Bioscientists lecture and the hot water’s out in the flat and he hasn’t even seen Lily _once_ today –

So he hurries over to the ice rink, scarf wrapped around his neck and mouth to fight off the piercing wind, and puts on his skates with frantic fingers. There’s nothing scheduled for tonight so the ice should be free and he can just skate around at the speed of lightning like he’s about to tear the ground underneath him to shreds until he’s too fast for his thoughts to keep up. His movements are jerky, impatient.

But then he gets to the rink and his eyes adjust to the bright lights overhead and there’s a figure that has already claimed it. Before the annoyance can rise and burst out of him, he notices the firecracker hair and stops.

He’s never seen Lily skate before.

Whenever they meet on the rink, it’s always after one of his practices when James is sweaty and aching and crashing from the high and Lily’s snooty figure skating friends are loitering around. He’s never had the chance to pause at the sidelines and watch the way she moves.

It’s like _magic_.

Where James is fury and vengeance, Lily moves like she’s some fucking _ice princess_ , each push of her legs smooth and elegant, her hands rising and falling, her body twirling gracefully. Time slows down as she conquers the rink, gliding with one foot in the air here, a sharp spin here, a lazy figure of eight there. He watches as she bends her body impossibly low, as she pushes herself off and twists like a corkscrew in the air before landing without faltering. A girl of flames at one with the ice.

She’s so beautiful it honestly hurts him to look.

Yet he can’t look away, can’t even bring himself to say anything as she dances to a music only she can hear. His throat flexes, searching in vain for something to wet it. His heart convulses in his chest. He can’t fucking stop _staring._

He isn’t sure how much time has passed when it happens. It could have been seconds or years for all he knew or cared. But one second Lily’s skating backwards and throwing herself into another one of her breath-taking spins; the next she’s crashing onto the rink, a yelp escaping her lips. Her head hits the ice. She groans.

Panic flares in the pits of James’ stomach and before he can blink, he shoots across the ice until he stops sharply and drops down beside her.

“Oh God, are you okay?” he blurts, helping her up. He hasn’t ever held her before, hasn’t even brushed a hand against her skin; though he’s always ready with a tease, there exists an unspoken agreement between them that he doesn’t overstep his boundaries and physical contact is one of them. In this moment, however, it’s the furthest thing from his mind. Worriedly, he brushes down her shoulders, eyes scanning her for any hint of an injury. “I – I saw that, it looked painful – oh _God,_ is your head okay, I heard the impact from all the way over there, holy shit, do you have a concussion – “

“James, James,” she interrupts, batting his hands away. “I’m okay – no seriously, _calm down,_ I’m okay.”

“Are you _sure?_ Because that looked pretty painful and that’s coming from me. I get floored on a regular basis.” He chews his lip and then frantically throws out, “Is your sight alright? Are there black spots in your vision? How many of me can you see right now?”

“One,” she replies and then adds drily, “Which is one more than necessary.”

James digs further into his lower lip doubtfully. “You’re _sure_ –“

“Yes, I’m sure,” she says impatiently and then rolls her eyes. “What are you even doing here? You’re not stalking me, are you?” She regards him with suspicion.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Evans. I came here to skate, obviously. What else would I be here for?”

Spots of pink enter her cheeks, but she brushes the embarrassment off. “Right. Well. I’ll leave you to it then,” she says and clambers to her feet. She takes a step towards the exit – and then nearly buckles. “Ah, _fuck!_ Jesus!”

James shoots up faster than a puck across ice and grasps her gently by the elbow. “Oh my God, you’re injured. Shit, you’ve broken your ankle, haven’t you? For God’s sake, Evans, why would you skate – “

“I haven’t broken my fucking ankle,” she interrupts through gritted teeth. “I think I’d be in a lot more pain if I had.”

“Well, you’ve done _something._ ”

“It’s fine. I’m fine, I’ll just stick some ice on it when I get home,” she insists and goes to take another step. Her entire body stiffens from the pain and another hiss escapes her mouth.

“You’re in no shape to walk back,” James says firmly.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re really not.”

Lily glares.

James glares back.

And honestly, though his soulmate can be terrifying if she puts her mind to it, there’s a reason James is sending his parents to an early grave and it’s because he’s fucking _stubborn._ When he gets an idea, he pounces on it, digs his claws in and refuses to let go. So it’s really no surprise that he wins their silent standoff and escorts her off the ice, apologising every time she winces from the pain – much to Lily’s annoyance.

(“Apologise _one more time_ and I swear – “

“Sorry, sorry. Ugh, sorry for saying sorry. Ah, fuck! Never mind.”)

When they’re off the rink, James lets go of her waist, bends down to loosen his skates and kicks them off. “Give me a second,” he says, jogging over to stow them back in his locker (he’d have left them there on the ground if he wasn’t in uni where people are 900% ready to steal some goods if they look unguarded) before returning with his feet hastily stuffed in some worn-looking Timberlands.

“I can make it back to my flat on my own,” she says, even though their residence is a good fifteen minute walk away.

James frowns. “You’re not going to your flat, you’re going to the nurse,” he says and before she can voice her protest, he squats slightly, hooks one arm under the back of her knees and the other around her back before lifting.

Lily shrieks, “What the actual _fuck,_ Potter! You can’t just grab me and start walking!” She starts squirming, yelling all the while. “What century do you think we’re fucking living in? We’re not in Romeo and Juliet for God’s sake.”

“You’re injured,” he insists.

She huffs out a sigh and then says flatly, “Please put me down, it’s just a sprained ankle.”

“That you can’t walk on.”

“I’d rather be in pain than have you manhandle me like I’m some blushing bride.”

Before he can help it, a faint flush of pink ghosts into his own cheeks. He hasn’t paused to consider their position that way, too concerned with getting Lily checked out, but her words remind him that this isn’t just anyone, this is his _soulmate_ , and he probably _will_ marry her someday and hold her like this, eyes soft as he stares down at her in his arms.

For now, Lily scowls back up at him.

Blinking to dispel the illusion, James hastily sets her down. “Alright, fine, I won’t hold you like that. Just – get on my back, will you? I can piggyback you to the office.”

“I’d rather not,” she scoffs, her nose scrunched up in disdain. He’s never realised how adorable it is, round and slightly flat and sitting a little large on her face. He’s never seen a nicer nose in his life.

“Just get on my damn back, Evans, and stop making life difficult. I’m literally helping you out here.”

“I don’t _need_ your help,” she says petulantly and tries to twist away to prove her point.

Three minutes later, they’re walking out of the building, Lily’s legs wrapped around his waist and her arms around his neck. Her hands dig into the base of his neck with an uncomfortably tight grip, but he keeps his complaints in his head, focusing on supporting her with his hands on the back of her legs.

A voice in his mind panickedly informs him of all the places they’re currently in contact with each other, of the citrus scent of Lily’s hair, of the warmth of her breath as she subconsciously burrows closer to him to battle away the frigid air. Her legs feel strong and powerful under his palms and fuck, he probably shouldn’t be thinking about her legs when they’re wrapped around him like this and _keep your mind out of the fucking gutter, Potter, she is literally on her fucking deathbed_ –

“Your thoughts are so loud,” Lily murmurs the words directly into his ear. When he shivers, it’s not because of the wind. “You should tell them to shut up.”

And even though it’s minus God knows what outside and he’s hoisting a fully grown girl on his back and a part of his mind is pondering obscene scenarios that will surely have Lily stab him if she knows of them, there’s a slowly emerging bubble of happiness blooming inside of him, travelling up his throat to escape in a laugh. James grins, the day’s troubles slipping away from him like dust off a monument.

“Buckle up,” he smirks and then breaks out into a run, his other half screaming protests down his ear.

* * *

 

“Remus is nice. How is he friends with you?” Lily says as she takes a sip of James’ coffee before placing it on the counter in front of him. There’s a trace of cream on her upper lip and he’s torn between laughing at her and kissing it off.

He settles for a scoff instead. “I’m nice too.”

There’s a moment of silence. And then Lily hums disbelievingly. “Sounds like a lie, but okay.”

“Shut up. You can’t talk. You have whipped cream on your lip.”

Chuckling, she runs the tip of her finger across her Cupid’s bow, careful not to smear her cherry red lipstick. “Haven’t you heard? Whipped cream is all the rage these days.”

“You know what else is? Slipping your beloved soulmate a free chocolate chip cookie out of the kindness of your heart.”

“I can offer you a ‘fuck off’ instead if you want?”

James lets out an embarrassingly loud wail of anguish and plasters the back of his hand to his forehead. The sound startles the few customers who loiter in the café and beckons a familiar scowl to twist Lily’s mouth, but he swears it’s a lot fonder than it once was.

“You’re killing me, Evans!” he cries and pretends to collapse onto the counter. His fingers creep towards her exposed wrist, brush against the porcelain skin before she nimbly wriggles her hand to pinch at them. “What did I do to deserve such cruelty?”

The only answer he receives is a look of disbelief and another sip of his coffee.

“You have whipped cream on your mouth again.”

“For fuck’s sake,” she breathes in annoyance before licking it off with her tongue. He follows the movement shamelessly, throat suddenly a little drier until Lily deliberately coughs and snaps her fingers right in front of his face. He nearly goes cross-eyed trying to focus on them. “Eyes on mine, Potter. Don’t be such a creep.”

He shrugs and offers a smile that is equal parts lazy and sheepish. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you _want_ me to kiss you.”

“I could be in desperate need of CPR and I still wouldn’t want your mouth on mine.”

“Now _that_ sounds like a lie to me. I bet it’s all you think about when we’re not together.”

“I’d rather kiss Remus,” she says – which wait, _what._ He’s a far better kisser than Remus!

(Not that he knows for sure, but anyone who can stand snogging Sirius must have something wrong with them. Honestly, the _injustice._ )

“You are aware he already has a soulmate, right?” he says, trying his best not to seem put out or worse, _jealous._ Because he has no reason to be jealous of Remus. Like he loves him and all but the guy reads Wikipedia pages in his spare time. There’s a clear winner here and his name rhymes with ‘otter’. “And that he’s very much gay.”

Lily shrugs, unconcerned. “My point still stands.” A smirk flits across her face and she leans forward, eyebrows raised mischievously. “Why? Are you jealous?”

“Of a guy who does Sudoku at eight in the morning?” he deadpans. “Sure.”

A laugh shakes her shoulders, bright and carefree. The sound is electric in the air, far warmer than the coffee he has yet to sip, far warmer than the lazy afternoons he has to spend in Busan every summer when visiting family. The words on his arm flash hot for a heartbeat, pulse with pleasure.

Genuine warmth dancing in her eyes, Lily pats his cheek for half a second. “Keep telling yourself that, hun.”

Long after he’s slouched off to his Genes, Evolution and Development lecture, the shadow of her hand lingers on his skin.

* * *

For someone who claims his life centres around ice hockey, James can never seem to remember his games. In the moment, it’s all he can think about: the solidness of his stick in his palms, the shifting of his gloves as he alternately loosens and tightens his grip; the steady metronome of his heart, reverberating against the ivory cage of his ribs; the anticipation that clings to the air, exhaled by the spectators and inhaled by the players like a Class A drug.

The build up to the moment it all kicks off gears him up like nothing else, like he’s an elastic band painstakingly being stretched to his limits. There’s the shard of a second where he hasn’t quite registered that the game has begun, that the band has been released – and then he explodes into abrupt movement, suddenly _alive._

The rest of the game usually passes in flashes.

He remembers the _feeling_ if nothing else. Exhilaration powering his movements as he sweeps across the rink, weaving in and around his opponents – shoulders crashing into shoulders and the resultant the sharp blow of pain – screaming, shouting, swearing, squaring up to whatever dickhead has decked one of his teammates – the faint awareness of Sirius in the background howling crass insults at everyone from the referee to the other team to their mothers, Remus bypassing mortification and moving straight onto yelling them alongside him. He knows the dull throb in his chin, the raggedness of his breaths, the cocky grin glinting under the bars of his helmet, the spat commands of Benjy as he zooms past.

Flashes, all of them, here and there until there’s an ear-splitting screech of a whistle and the elated shriek of victory when he realises the team has won.

Victory feels like a dozen players slamming into each other in the middle of the rink. It tastes like the bitter twang of sweat and a hoarse throat. It looks like Sirius Black, almost feral with glee, bounding out of his seat to pounce on James and Remus, always the more sensible one of the two, who pats him on the back and lets him know that it was a good game and that he should probably shower soon.

It smells like mango and papaya, like Lily Evans, who he finally catches a glimpse of when the congratulatory hugs and yells are out of the way and he can see more than two feet ahead of him. Her fingers fiddle with the curve of her hoops as she indulges him with a wry smile.

“Well, that was something, huh?” she finally says, shoving her hands into the back pockets of her boyfriend jeans. Her nose scrunches up briefly when he takes a step towards her, but she merely says, “I guess your obsession pays off.”

“I didn’t think you’d actually come and watch,” he confesses to her in a rare moment of vulnerability. He still feels like he’s on Cloud Nine, his heart fluttering like a bird in the sky, muscles itching to carry on despite the game having ended, but that all fades to a muted warmth as he gazes at Lily, tawny eyes soft. “I mean, I know I invited you but…”

“But what? I had spare time, figured I might as well come and show some support.” She pauses, plum lips quirking into a smirk. “Not that you need it. Only a first year and you already have fans.”

She inclines her head towards the rest of the stands where a few spectators carry bright signs and banners in their university colours. A couple of them are emblazoned with his name which is always nice to see, but they abruptly pale in comparison to the mere presence of the girl in front of him.

“Jealous?” he teases.

She scoffs, “Hardly. I think my eardrums have been massacred because of Black though. Never have I regretted your choice of friends as much as today.”

At that, James can’t help but toss his head back with a laugh. “Yeah, Sirius is… enthusiastic alright. Back when we used to play together, he was always benched for starting fights.” Whatever he may lack in talent, Sirius always makes up for in sheer passion. It’s a fact that endears him to whatever team they’ve landed on.

“Tell me about it. I thought Remus might try to reign him in, but he’s just as bad as his boyfriend. _God_ , they’re ridiculous,” she adds, but she’s smiling.

“You know you love it.”

“I know nothing.”

And though James can be dense and annoying and never aware of when to stop chatting someone’s ear off about the things he loves, he knows that he will look back on this moment and realise that this was the second that he truly began to fall for Lily Evans beyond what the words on his forearm dictate.

This moment where he’s tired and sweaty and smells like he needs three showers back to back, where Lily is declining his invitation to grab a bite with a silent gesture at her work shirt and a promise to meet for lunch tomorrow, where she’s less of a soulmate and more of a person, a _friend,_ this moment when he honestly feels like he’s the happiest he’s been in a while –

This is the moment he begins to fall.

* * *

 

At seven minutes past twelve the next day, James is slouched against the window of _Sheikh’s Shakes_ , absentmindedly scrolling through his Instagram feed, tapping hearts here, there and everywhere. A headache pulses at the base of his skull, incessantly reminding him of the bender he went on last night with the team – he really shouldn’t drink around Sirius so much, not when they’ve teamed up to get Remus tipsy as well since the brunette is roughly eighty percent of their impulse control – but he grits his teeth and pushes past it. He has a lunch date (that’s not really a date) with Lily for God’s sake and he’ll be damned if he skips out on it.

He’s compensated for his hangover with a couple of pills, a litre bottle of water and these obnoxious sunglasses his mum once got him on a business trip to Tokyo. They’re actually pretty cool, but grey clouds have conquered most of the sky and he’s had to pair it with a snapback to cover his messy hair so he probably looks like a douchebag. Your everyday fuckboy if you will.

“Sorry I’m late,” comes a sudden gasp and James looks up from his phone to see Lily Evans pressing against a stitch in her side, slightly red in the face. “I woke up literally fifteen minutes ago.”

He flashes her an understanding smile. “It’s okay, I didn’t even have to wait long. You want to head in?”

Still pressing against the stitch, Lily nods and leads the way into the joint, one of your average burger and milkshake joints with better than average food that crop up around university grounds, babbling all the while.

“The thing is: I didn’t set an alarm to wake up because I usually wake up around seven or eight anyway, but my shift ended at eleven and I was literally just about to fall asleep when I remembered I had an essay to submit by nine in the morning so I had to get my arse out of bed and ended up finishing it at, like, four in the morning and then all that fucking _referencing_ took me another ten years and knocked twice that off my life so I – “

“It’s okay,” he repeats not rudely. Glancing up at the menu above the counter, he continues, “I’ve known that struggle before, trust me. You didn’t have to run here though, I would’ve understood if you just shot me a text saying you can’t make it.”

The glare she sends him is equal parts affronted and accusatory; it’s not nearly as harsh as they used to be when they first met. “First of all, I didn’t run,” she says stiffly, even as her breaths fall a little harder than usual. “Second of all, I don’t like cancelling on people. It makes me feel bad.”

James shoots her a grin. “So you _do_ have a heart, then?”

“Of course I do. I mean, it’s small, but it’s there. Somewhere. I suppose.”

“Glad to know,” he says. “It makes you less intimidating.”

“ _Damn it_ ,” she hisses and then throws her best smile at the cashier as she’s called forward.

Ten minutes later, they’re sat opposite each other in a booth next to a faded poster of Sridevi. Lily has commented on his fuckboy shades multiple times already and he has pointed out the days-old Pot Noodle stain on her Ramones jumper and they’re both feigning disgust at the amount of food the other has ordered and James feels happy.

“There’s no possible way you can fit that in your mouth,” she says, grimacing at the triple cheeseburger in his hands: the cheese melting, the sauce oozing, the bap straining against everything it holds. “I just – _how._ ”

He waggles his eyebrows. “You’d be surprised at what I can fit in my mouth, Evans.”

“…”

“That came out wrong,” he admits and Lily snorts with helpless laughter. “Oh, shut up. You have a _chicken_ burger.”

“It’s really nice,” she says, taking a huge bite out of it. Peri sauce runs down the edges of her mouth and she carelessly wipes it off with a red napkin. “Better than Death By Cholesterol over there.”

James gasps, “Don’t ever talk to me and my son again,” and promptly reduces his son by a good chunk. He nearly moans at how good and greasy it tastes. This is the pinnacle of his student life right here.

“Gladly.” She steals one of his chips and pops it into her mouth, ignoring his muffled indignant whine. “I never did have much patience for fuckboys.”

He chases down his food with a large gulp of his Coke. Really, he probably shouldn’t eat like this in public – a group of girls to his left throw him a scandalised look and turn away with identical expressions of visible distaste – and his dad would probably have a heart attack if he saw him behave like this in front of his soulmate, but it’s not as if Lily is any better. As if to prove his point, she licks the sauce off the side of her thumb.

“I’m not a fuckboy,” he informs her. She snorts into her drink. “Honestly, I’m not.”

“Sure,” she says, dripping with sarcasm. “ _Sweetheart._ ”

He instantly grasps what she’s getting at. Swallowing back the instinct to flash her a sheepish look, he argues, “In my defence, your friend insulted ice hockey.”

“First of all – “

“You know you sound like a meme when you say that, right.”

Lily narrows her eyes. Rather pointedly, she repeats, “First of all. That’s a shitty defence. You’d be a terrible lawyer, never change your degree.”

“Thanks.”

“And second of all, Cat isn’t my friend. She’s just spearheading the campaign for a figure skating team at the uni.”

He furrows his eyebrows. “There’s not already a team?”

“Nope.” The word is popped out and replaced with another one of his chips. “Apparently, there’s not enough interest in it. Our cohort is the biggest one yet and even then the uni isn’t so sure they want to invest the money into it. Cat’s gone to the student union about it so we’re working on it; it’ll probably go through by the end of the year. The SU’s good like that.”

“Oh. Right.” The reply seems inadequate. He tries to think about what it’d be like to have to fight for ice hockey, for a chance to compete in something that just always _was_. He doesn’t like it. “So how long have you been skating for?”

Lily looks thoughtful, chewing on a stray jalapeno that’s fallen out of her burger. “Ever since I was about five or six, I think. Most of my life, really.”

“No wonder you’re so amazing at it,” he says, admiration honest. Sometimes, he catches himself thinking about it, about the way her body seemed to float on the ice, magnetic. He still hasn’t seen anything surpass it.

When Lily smiles, it’s brighter than anything he’s seen today. It’s deep and broad, it’s _sincere._ Her teeth are small so when her lips pull back, the little pearl rows are encased by the pink of her gums and his heart _swells_ at the sight. She’s cute. She’s so fucking cute.

“Thanks, Potter.” A faint pink crawls up her neck and she confesses, “I actually used to train professionally for a few years.”

“Really? Holy shit, no way.”

“Yeah. I mean, that was when I was in secondary school,” she says with a small shrug he’s come to understand means the opposite of what she intends. She throws it in to indicate that she doesn’t care much for what she’s doing or saying – when, in truth, she cares a damn lot. “It’s been a couple of years since I stopped. But back then, I thought I would be in the Olympics.”

A sombre note steals into the air. James puts down his burger and carefully asks, “What changed?”

This time around, Lily’s smile is much less warm. A humourless laugh slips out of her mouth. “It depends on who you ask really. My manager called it a mental breakdown, my parents said it was stress. Vernon insisted it was a psychotic break and… well, you can imagine how _ecstatic_ Tuney was when she heard that. Dear old Tuney. She never did like the fact that I was scouted.”

She seems to lose herself in her thoughts, unpleasant memories tumbling to the forefront of her mind. Torn, he watches her. Part of him wants to ask, to uncover the bad blood that lies between Lily and her sister and see what it is she refers to every now and then with vague, bitter comments. The other part of him remembers Sirius and Regulus, the way they loved and fought and loved and fought until it tore his best friend apart, until Sirius finally threw down his weapons and escaped to a new home and a new family.

There are some things that are just too painful to touch upon.

So instead James swallows his curiosity and softly coaxes, “And what do _you_ think?”

Lily blinks at him, confused in the midst of whatever plagues her. And then she snaps back to the present, picks up another handful of his fries, and shrugs. “I think,” she says pensively, “I was so caught up in trying to be the best that I forgot why I was there in the first place.”

“Because…” He searches for the right words, the right emotions. Memories of his practices flood his thoughts. “Because it feels right to be on the rink. No expectations, no… nothing from your everyday life distracting you. Just – you, the skates and the ice.”

When he meets her eyes, Lily’s smiling again. Her gums don’t peek out at him, her teeth don’t flash under the dim lights, but it’s no less lovely.

“Exactly,” she says softly. Biting her lip, she drops her gaze to her food. “Looks like you aren’t a complete fuckboy after all, Potter.”

He breathes out a laugh and she grins into her burger and then they dissolve into a discussion on what the sliding scale of fuckboy really consists of, escaping the uncomfortable grasp of her past. Soon enough, they’ve slipped back into their constant bickering and it is nothing more than a faint mark on this page in the book of their lives. For now, the only thing that matters is the grease on his tongue and the pungent smell of cholesterol and how soft Lily looks when she’s curled up in ripped jeans and a Ramones jumper that slips off to reveal a single freckled shoulder.

For now, all that matters is them.

* * *

 

“Christmas is coming up,” Remus says one day when they’re in the Learning Commons.

It’s two in the afternoon and Sirius is napping twenty metres away in the Sleeping Centre and Remus is doing that thing James has always secretly been envious of, that thing where he turns to stare him dead in the eye as he continues to type without making a single error. His fingernails fly across the keyboard like lightning; James tracks the movement with barely concealed awe.

“I know,” he finally says. “Every shop I’ve walked into has been reminding me of it.”

“You’re going home, right? Your mum called last night to make sure Sirius has invited me ‘round.”

“Of course, she did,” he mutters because Mrs Potter is nothing short of enamoured by Remus Lupin and his polite, bookish manner. “And of course, I am. I’ve missed her cooking.”

As if to agree, his stomach twinges mournfully.

Remus rolls his eyes (because he _always_ rolls his eyes) and then asks, “Are you taking Lily home to meet your parents?”

If his life was a movie, James would dramatically choke on his water at this point. He settles for a strangled noise and a wide-eyed look that is reminiscent of his grasshopper days. “Invite Lily – are you _mad?_ She doesn’t even acknowledge me as her soulmate, do you honestly think she’ll want to meet my parents? Jesus, Remus.”

“What are you on about, you see her every day,” he says with another roll of his eyes and returns to his computer screen. Scanning his last few sentences, he adds, “You’ve even had dinner at her flat. And met her best friend.”

Ah, yes. Marlene. A sweet girl, that one, with her olive skin and cherub cheeks. James had exactly one second to think this before she cheerily informed him that he looked like more of a fuckboy than she’d anticipated and assured him that he’d lose the opportunity to further the Potter line if he ever broke Lily’s heart.

Although he thinks he’s won her over seeing as how she did acquiesce that he’s not that bad when it boils down to it.

(“Perfect for our Lily,” she whispered when the redhead’s back was turned.

When James burned red, she winked.)

“Well, yeah,” he admits, running a hand through his hair. He swivels around in his chair, feet trailing the ground. “But we haven’t, like… _done_ anything. And we don’t really mention – all this.” He waves his left arm a little pathetically.

“So?” Remus shrugs. “That doesn’t really mean anything. Do I have to remind you that that idiot – “ He jabs a thumb back at his snoring boyfriend. “ – refused to acknowledge me for over half a year? He didn’t even _breathe_ my way. And now he won’t leave me alone. Ever. _Ever_.”

“Don’t act like you don’t like it.”

“Trust me, I’m not complaining.” He cocks his head to the side. “Much.”

“If this is about your sex life again,” James begins warningly.

“It’s not. I mean, if we’re talking about that, I can assure you it is amazing – “

“I really don’t care.”

“ – but the point is that you’re just in a transition period with Lily, alright? I mean, think about how far you’ve come since the day you two met. She _hated_ you at first. Like before she knew who I was to you, she even told me all about it. Actually, it was pretty funny.”

“Thanks,” he deadpans.

“You’re welcome,” he says without missing a beat. “But you’re friends now. You’re getting to know each other. She hasn’t punched you in the throat like she promised she would.”

Which, fair enough, is true. But he doesn’t think that means she’s up to visiting his parents, no matter how much Remus encourages him to at least propose the possibility. When he finally cracks under the pressure and texts her, the response is as he predicted.

**James P _._**

_would u ever want to meet my parents_

**Sweetheart**

_to express my condolences for ending up with a son like you? sure_

_not this xmas tho_

**James P.**

_i’ll have u know that i am the apple of my parents’ eyes_

_their miracle baby if u will_

_but okay_

**Sweetheart**

_i’m going back to cokeworth anyways_

_family dinner yay!!!1!_

**James P.**

_try not to cry every second we’re apart_

**Sweetheart**

_too late, the tears of joy have already started_

_later fuckboy_

**James P.**

_see ya, sweetheart_

**Sweetheart**

-.-

* * *

 

When James was young, a babe swathed in shockingly ugly beige blankets courtesy of his mother’s business associates, the Potters used to live almost permanently in Godric’s Hollow.

His parents often say it was because they dedicated so much of their lives to their businesses already, Mr Potter with his haircare products and his wife with the selection of ready-made lunches that paid for her own and much more, that they indulged in stepping away from the reins for a few years. For years, they tried and failed to start their own family, always brushing it off as something that would happen when the time was right, until James popped into the world with a howl like a banshee and a head thick with hair.

Enamoured, they stole away to a countryside village to live out a picture-perfect life of bees lazily circling their garden, James running around with children his age, and cosy nights by the fire.

His parents failed to factor in their need for constant activity. Within a few years, they admitted defeat and returned to their townhouse in London with its marble countertops, gaping windows and the bustle of city life at their fingertips. It was a wise move on their parts – James seems to have inherited their restlessness, their ache to constantly _do_ rather than simply _be._

But when it comes to Christmas, the Potters like to pretend that they still live that quintessential life in the countryside where the bees buzz and the air is crisp and the stars can actually be seen at night. They ride out to their cosy cottage, decorate it in a mishmash of green and red, and indulge in a world free of 3am Skype calls to businessmen on the other side of the globe.

As much as James loves his house back in London – his room with all its posters of NHL players, the king-sized bed and its crumpled bedsheets his dad always nags him to change, the rack of albums he buys and refuses to open because it’s called sacrilege, Sirius, shut the fuck up and go back to your room, I can always listen to them on Spotify anyways – Godric’s Hollow still feels like home to him. The first step in relieves him of tension he didn’t even know he had.

Something inside him quiets for the first time in a long time.

“James, move the fuck out of the way,” Sirius says, shoving his butt with the toe of his shoe.

Squawking as he topples in, James whips around to screech indignantly for his father, but the man is already wearily running a hand through his silver hair and sighing, “Sirius, don’t kick James in the bum. James, stop with the pterodactyl impressions.”

“What, _Dad_!”

“Sure thing, Dad,” Sirius says easily. Tossing his best friend a smug smile, he bounds past him and hurtles up the stairs with a yell of, “I get the bed away from the window!”

Gasping in a manner that’s entirely too dramatic for the situation, James shrieks again, “No, you don’t, you little fucker, you had it last year! SIRIUS, YOU DICK – “

 _“JAMES!”_ yells Mrs Potter.

“MUM, THIS IS NOT THE TIME FOR A LESSON ON PROPER ENGLISH, HE’S STEALING MY BED.”

To summarise the Potter family, one need not look further than this interaction. The holiday promises to pass in much of the same fashion: Sirius and James alternating between bickering fiercely over who gets to place the star on top of the tree to teaming up to tie their mum in disgustingly purple tinsel to accidentally breaking an ornament, pinning the blame on each other before James is blamed for the ruckus and told to shovel the path as punishment.

(Ten minutes later, Sirius can be found pulling on his gloves and trudging out to help.)

Mornings are spent sleeping in until ten until Mr Potter comes around to wake them for the first time. An hour later, he’ll return to find James camped out in Sirius’ bed, chased there by the draught from the window, and fifteen minutes after that will see them all in the kitchen, shivering in their fluffy robes as they sip on orange juice and eat whatever has been cooked up. Mrs Potter will peruse the newspaper, Mr Potter will wheedle the crossword off her, James and Sirius will try to discreetly start a food fight until they’re threatened to be choked with the next thing that leaves their plate but doesn’t enter their mouths.

And then the rest of the day is spent watching Netflix, admiring the snow or throwing themselves into it, texting their respective soulmates, and pretending like they don’t have exams bearing down on their arses and a handful of assignments to worry about.

A couple of weeks in, Remus clambers out of the Potter’s car, shivering under his thin coat and long nose buried in the mauve scarf looped around his neck. Before he can pull his suitcase out of the boot, the door flies open and Sirius leaps forward, pulling him in a fierce hug.

“I’m guessing you missed me,” comes the muffled greeting a second later when Remus wraps his own bony arms around his midsection.

Sirius mumbles into his hair, “Of course, I missed you. Idiot.” He pulls him into a lingering kiss that Mr Potter politely glances away from, mouth quirked up in a soft smile, and that James pointedly ignores in favour of running forward himself.

“Remus!” he exclaims, tactless as always. He hovers impatiently until the two break apart, his disgust only partly feigned. With a pat on his friend’s shoulder, he grins. “Nice to see you again. At least this one will stop moping now that you’re here.”

Sirius glares. “I don’t _mope._ ”

“You so mope.”

“As if _you_ don’t with all your texts to your sweetheart.”

James refuses to be embarrassed by Lily’s contact name. He refuses to be. But it seems his body hasn’t quite reached the same conclusion because even though he _knows_ he only saved it that way to annoy her, his cheeks betray him with a furiously red blush. Coughing, he tries to shrug it off.

“I don’t mope about Lily,” he says honestly. “There’s nothing to mope about there.”

Because sure he’d like to hold her hand and kiss her after their dates-that-aren’t-dates and wipe off the traces of sauce on the corners of her mouth with his thumb, he’s still happy with what they have. Life isn’t all about sex, shockingly enough.

Somewhere in the past, he’s sure fifteen year old James has fainted at the thought.

“Let’s just agree everyone has moped and that my presence has graced you all so we can get inside,” Remus cuts in with one of those smiles that make James roll his eyes and Sirius’ transform into literal hearts.

“Speak for yourself,” James scoffs and turns to go in when Sirius lightly kicks him in the shin. “What do you want now, you rat?”

He jerks his head towards the open boot. “Get his luggage then.”

“ _You_ get it, he’s your soulmate.”

“Since he’s my soulmate, I need to catch up on lost time so you should get it.”

“Ten seconds without him won’t kill you.”

“Just get the damn suitcase.”

“No, you get it!”

“ _You_ get it.”

“Fuck, no. Sack that.”

James ends up getting it.

* * *

 

The texts come at thirteen past nine in the morning.

Mr Potter has not yet made his customary wake up call yet so the rapid succession of buzzes hooks into his consciousness in the middle of whatever hazy dream it idles in and then yanks him out. Growling, he squints his eyes open, fumbles blindly for the phone and prepares himself to rip into whatever _twat_ dares to disturb him from his sleep at the arsecrack of dawn –

**Sweetheart**

_james, are you there?_

_james?_

_i’m guessing not huh_

_forgot that you’re never awake earlier than ten unless you have a lecture_

_sorry if this wakes you up but i just, i need to talk to someone and you’re the first person i thought of since i know you won’t judge me_

_at least i hope you won’t_

_basically tuney and vernon came over last night_

_i was going to message you about it but mum thought it’d be rude if i spent the entire dinner texting you so i had to keep my phone in my pocket. i wish i’d just ignored her though. it was fucking awful having to sit there and pretend like vernon doesn’t make me want to pull my teeth out one by one. he’s such a fucking piece of shit i stg_

_and tuney’s no better_

_i keep trying to make an effort with her but she refuses to let me in_

_it’s such a small thing you know, but i made her favourite breakfast today and she just threw it in the bin. i woke up at 6am to make her stupid fucking breakfast because it’s something we used to do all the time as kids and she didn’t even glance twice at it. just threw it in the bin, grabbed a banana and left_

_and yeah, i know it’s just breakfast and there are worse things that have happened in the world, but she’s my sister and i just wish i knew what i did to make her hate me this much_

_maybe it’s just me_

_maybe i’m just not loveable_

_i’m sorry you have to deal with all this. not just the texts but me in general. you deserve better._

By his standards, it’s still early in the morning so it takes longer than it should to go beyond formulating the words in his mind and actually understand them. When he does, he shoots up in bed, wide awake and abruptly terrified.

This isn’t – this isn’t _like_ Lily.

Not like her at all.

And then he remembers a burger and milkshake place near their university with greasy food and infamous Bollywood actresses plastered against the walls, remembers the bitter curve of chapped lips and distant eyes.

Sparing a quick glance towards the other bed – Remus and Sirius curl up against each other in their sleep, one flat on his back with the other’s head heavy on his chest – he taps the little button by Lily’s contact name and waits for it to connect with bated breath.

After what feels like an eternity, the ringing stops. A shuffle of movement, an exhale of air on the other end, and then Lily’s voice in his ear, saying, “Potter?”

“H-Hey,” he whispers, the word catching in his throat. His voice is rough with sleep, dry from dehydration, but it scrapes out anyway. “I just saw your texts. How are you?”

There’s a long, almost embarrassed silence on the other end. “I’m… okay.”

James hums and then slowly leans back against the headboard, eyes darting towards his friends again. He’d rather they don’t wake up during this conversation if he’s being honest. It’s easier that way.

“Okay. Mind telling me the truth?” he says, keeping his tone light.

Another pause. And then Lily sighs, “It’s nothing really. Looking back on it, I overreacted. I mean, it’s just breakfast, right? She probably wasn’t feeling hungry. It wasn’t that deep.”

“And if it was?” he questions.

When there’s no reply, he fears he’s stepped over a line. Panicking slightly, he opens his mouth to blurt out an apology, but then Lily’s breath catches on the other end and a wet sniffle fires across the miles that separate them.

“I just – “ She chokes on a sob. “I just want my sister back. I don’t want her to hate me anymore. I don’t want my parents to treat me like I’m going to break any second now just because I freaked out at the wrong moment. I don’t want to be treated like a freak.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” he says softly. His hand lifts off the duvet, curling around thin air as if he can reach through space and time to grab her and pull her close. “You’re not a freak, okay? You’re – you’re – _so much_ more than that, I promise.”

“Am I? Because I don’t feel that way. I come back to Cokeworth and I feel like the same little girl who choked and I just – I wish I could – I don’t even know anymore, James, I don’t know what I want. I don’t _know_ , okay?”

“Okay. That’s alright, there’s nothing wrong with not knowing, Lily.” He doesn’t even know what he’s saying anymore. Words hover in the air and he grabs them with a greedy fist, desperate to do _something_. “You’re eighteen years old. Who says you’re supposed to know anything right now?”

She sniffs again. “I want her to love me again,” she says plaintively.

He wants to reassure her that she will, that Tuney never even stopped. He wants to tell her that there’s no one in this universe more deserving of love, that she has been constructed by distant stars and crushing force to be held and adored. He wants to tell her that everything will be okay by the time nightfall comes, that he can personally attest to this promise.

But the truth is he knows nothing about her relationship with her sister, or why the rejection of a heartfelt gesture caused Lily Evans, strong and fearless Lily Evans, to collapse into tears, or why Tuney even tore away from her in the first place.

“I know,” he murmurs into the phone. “I know.”

* * *

 

Despite crying to him over the phone, Lily Evans falls back into teasing James easily.

She throws her quips over textbooks in the library, delivers them with his coffee during her shifts, taps his shades with a snicker and steals his snapbacks with a cheeky grin. She saves his number under _Fuckboy #10_ (which prompts a startled conversation about who the other nine might be) and her glares are as frequent as ever.

Oftentimes, the insults accompany a casual pat of his cheek or a tap to the underside of his chin, a instinctive gesture here and there that manages to make his skin flash hot for a moment of bliss. She begins to slip her hand into his after nicking his hats and wordlessly slides him a free cookie with each coffee even as he complains that she’s fattening him up. Each glare she fires is followed by a fond look and the amused twitch of her lips.

Things are different now.

He realises this one evening after they’ve watched the latest Marvel movie in cinemas, Lily criticising half a hundred things while he insists it’s still pretty fucking awesome on the big screen, and he’s dropped her off outside her flat. He lives three floors up from her, but before he can head back towards the stairs, her hand shoots out to grab his wrist. It’s the one that gleams black with her words, the forearm that announces to the world that he is made for Lily Evans and she is made for him.

“Yeah?” He blinks at her inquiringly. Faintly in the back of his mind, he notes the pink sheen under her freckles, the uncomfortable set to her shoulders, the way she shifts nervously on the balls of her feet. It is too late to connect these things to one another so he shrugs it off. “What’s up?”

Lily licks her lips hesitantly, tracing the path her berry lipstick must’ve followed earlier today. Then she looks him dead in the eye and says, “If I asked you to kiss me, would you do it?”

He nearly dies there and then.

“W-What?” he croaks.

A glint of insecurity creeps into her expression. She swallows. “I… Is that a no, then?”

“No!” He nearly screams the word. “No! No, what – I mean – _yes_ – I mean – _fuck._ I’d love to kiss you, I fucking think about it half the time – I mean – “ He might’ve stood there and stammered for ages, but Lily cuts him off with a small giggle.

“You’re such an idiot,” she says fondly and steps closer to him. Her hands cautiously rise to link around the back of his neck and she pushes herself onto her tiptoes. “But you’re my idiot.”

When her lips meet his, he’s actually sure he’s died this time.

It’s not a particularly long kiss. There’s nothing heated about it, nothing messy and passionate like the one Sirius smacked on Remus when he finally stopped ignoring his feelings. It’s soft and curious, soft as a feather, almost a suggestion of a kiss. He tilts his head and presses forward until there’s no suggestion about it, until one of his hands cups her face and the other holds the back of her head, until his heart is singing her name.

_Lily._

The words are traced indelibly into the ivory curves of his ribcage, slipping underneath the skin to be etched into his forevermore. His forearm tingles with pleasure; his entire body echoes the call. When he pulls away, he’s breathing a lot harder than he should given how chaste the entire interaction was.

Lily looks up at him, teeth digging into her lower lip. “That’s a yes, right?” she finally says.

His mouth breaks out into a stupid grin and he laughs. She returns it with her own smile, gums peeking out, cuteness on full-blast, and he’s so in love.

* * *

Dating Lily Evans is practically the same as not-dating her except there are a lot more kisses this way. Kisses before they split up to go their separate ways, pecks on cheeks when he picks up his coffee and tucks a stray cookie into the pocket of his bag. Long, indulgent sessions when they’re sprawled on her bed, their notebooks weakly calling out for them to study like they actually intended to. Messy kisses after they’ve gone on a pub crawl with a bunch of their flatmates even though they know better. Hard, furious ones when he’s staggered off the rink after winning another match.

Kisses, kisses, kisses.

He can get used to them.

But yes, dating Lily doesn’t change their dynamic by much. She still has him saved under _Fuckboy #10_ and he still manages to lather on the right amount of arrogance to irritate her and they still eat like pigs in front of each other. He still claims ice hockey is his only reason for living and she grumbles all the ways she’s going to kill him while she interlocks their fingers and places them in his coat pocket. The word _sweetheart_ is still a sure-fire way to compel her to spit fire.

“I will tear your intestines out,” she promises.

James only wraps an arm around her shoulder. “We really need to discuss these strange kinks of yours, my love.”

Her hand twitches towards his neck.

He’s never been happier in his life.

That’s not to say their relationship is smooth sailing. Sometimes, their light-hearted teases somehow devolve into serious arguments and suddenly a whole host of problems are paraded out for show, jaws clenched and tempers simmering. Sometimes, Lily’s family will say or do a certain thing that will disconcert her for the entire day and she’ll end up pressing her forehead into the crook of James’ neck, breaths shallow and the grip on his t-shirt tight. Sometimes, they don’t fit together like the world told them they would.

But they try their hardest anyway.

They sit down and talk about their issues. For the sake of their relationship, they vow to stay calm despite the stings the accusations might bring. They hold hands and sincerely attempt to smooth the cracks they find.

“My mum says communication is everything,” he often says as if that’s that and he supposes it is.

* * *

 

Game season draws to an end and their team doesn’t win, but they sure as hell come close. Benjy cries when he hears the verdict and James has to choke back a few tears himself, but it’s good enough for the rest of them so they celebrate with pizza coupons and a karaoke night at one of the pubs they like to frequent.

That night, Lily kisses him under the muted orange of a streetlight, the muggy air of summer thick on their skins, and murmurs that she thinks her standards have dropped dramatically.

“I think I’m in love with a fuckboy,” she admits, and he grins against her mouth.

Later, he traces the plump lips with his thumb, pupils blown wide with want and desire. They take their time exploring each other’s bodies, tracing the canvas of their skins, the dips and dents and hollows, the looping script that burns black against smooth skin, the freckles and moles, the scars and blisters. It’s soft and just a little breathless and neither would trade it for the world.

Game season draws to an end, but James is still James and he needs the ice to ground him so he still straps on his skates and circles the rink for hours whenever exams threaten to pull him under their suffocating tide. It’s on one such day that Lily finds him lazily tracing figure of eights, mind distantly focused on the control of cell proliferation and the set of notes he has to crawl through when he finally makes it home that evening.

“Hi,” she says when he notices her at last. She offers him a little smile. “You okay?”

All he can reply with is a shrug and she seems to understand because she merely skates over, taps his chin and turns away.

Lily always has been something of a goddess on the ice. She slides across it like she’s in a dream, eyes closed, arms up, spine taut. One leg sweeps out as she bends low, then pulls in as she launches into a new sequence of moves. Each spin is calculated, each turn of her hand predetermined. The push and pull of the tempo of her body, the absentminded hum on her tongue. It’s all deceptively fragile, like the gracefulness of her body is a mere fact and not the product of years of work. Nothing about the breath-taking performance hints at the brutality that comes hand in hand with it.

Sort of like Lily herself really.

Nothing about her appearance suggests it, but her tongue can be as sharp as the point of her chin, her eyes as fierce as a lioness. She can be kind, yes, and she’s not a cruel person by any means – but there’s a spine of steel in her, one as deadly as the quips she can effortlessly fire off.

Deadly and beautiful.

She really is made for this.

Watching Lily skate has always calmed James. He remembers the first time all those months ago – the irritation of events long forgotten, the tightness in his throat, the sudden scratch of the record when she jerked to a stop – and marvels at how some things haven’t changed. He’s still as awestruck as he was then.

It takes him an embarrassingly long moment to realise she has stopped. When Lily sees she has his attention, she cocks her head to the side and smirks. “Back to earth, are we?”

James shrugs as if his cheeks aren’t pink. “You’re beautiful,” he says truthfully and then it’s Lily’s turn to turn red.

“You’re so annoying,” she mumbles, trying and failing to fight off the flood of red. Even as she speaks, she slowly skates over until she can place her hands on his waist and look up at him. “I don’t know why I’m with you.”

“Because I’m a dashing young lad?”

Her nose scrunches up in amusement; she flicks his. “You’ve just proved my point.”

James kisses her. “I love you.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Crazy for you.”

“And cheesy,” she adds, pulling him into a hug. She speaks her words into his chest. “And you always forget to take your mugs back to the kitchen after you make a cup of tea so I get Peter messaging me to beg you to wash up before he has to use a measuring spoon to drink water.”

“I can’t believe you gave Pettigrew your number,” he says.

She retorts, “I can’t believe you still call him Pettigrew after living with him for this long.”

“Speaking of which,” James says, pulling back to look down at her, “I’ve been meaning to speak to you.” A confused, somewhat worried look enters her eyes so he hurriedly assures, “It’s nothing bad, don’t worry. Actually, I – I’m hoping it’s good? I mean, _I_ think it’s good, but you might not, but I really think it’s a sound idea so you should probably give it some thought before you shoot it down so – “

“Are you ever going to tell me what it is?”

Right. Okay. He should probably do that.

James takes a deep breath. “Move in with me next year.”

She blinks up at him. “What.”

“Move in with me,” he repeats. “Next year. I mean, technically it’ll be me _and_ Remus and Sirius, but really, I’m the only one who matters so you should disregard them and focus on what matters – “

“You want me to move in with you?”

He cuts off and, after a moment’s hesitation, nods. The thought has been in his mind for a while now actually, circling along with all the facts about microbiology and protein targeting and how long he has left to study until his first exam hits. He’s given it attention at night when he falls asleep to daydreams about what next year might be like if Lily agrees. It’s the first thing he thinks of in the morning when he wakes up to a cold bed and sheer _want_ tugging on his heartstrings. They’ve known each other for less than a year, but he’s never felt more certain about anything before.

The proposition might be spontaneous, but the thought is anything but.

“My parents are setting us up with a place,” he says, “so money isn’t the issue. I mean, we have to shift food bills because they want us to learn how to budget or whatever, but the big stuff is all taken care of. It’s a nice flat, not too far from here so you won’t have a huge journey in the morning, and I know you were planning on just getting student accommodation for your second year, but I really think that this idea has some merit – “

“Okay.”

“ – No, _seriously_ , Evans, promise you’ll think about it – wait, what? Okay?” He blinks rapidly. “You’re agreeing to it?”

Lily nods. “There’s no reason not to. You’re saving me a lot of money after all.”

A beam bursts onto his face. Laughing, James pulls her back into his arms and _squeezes_ , eliciting a panicked squawk from Lily’s compressed lungs, and buries his face into her fiery hair.

“Lily Evans,” he says sincerely, “I love you more than ice hockey.”

She sighs, “You’re honestly such a twat.”

And then she kisses him.

By now, they’ve exchanged hundreds of them. Thousands, even. And yet each time feels as new as the first, electrifying and dreamlike, the warmth of her mouth earnest against his own. His hands tangle in her hair, his tongue darts out to swipe across her lower lip and then lick into the gap it falls away to reveal with a gasp. James kisses her like he’s just discovered what oxygen is, greedy for everything she has to offer him, his heart pulling her in and craving more, more, more.

“I love you,” he repeats, pressing his forehead against hers. He opens his eyes to find her already gazing up at him, the green impossibly soft. “I love you so much.”

She smiles up at him, gummy teeth and all. “You make me feel like I deserve it,” she whispers and that’s all he can really ask of her.

Months have passed since distant shadows clouded her expression in a cheap burger place, since her voice cracked over hundreds of miles and a phone line. He still doesn’t know exactly what it is that Tuney did, why she abandoned her sister so readily, only that it has something to do with the way Lily takes to the ice like she owns it, that it eventually poisoned her desire to want to be recognised for it. He still hasn’t met her parents yet, though she’s met and endeared his over coffee. He still doesn’t know all the things that make her tick, all the gears that compose her body, everything that makes Lily Evans who she is.

But he has the rest of their lives to do that so he’s not particularly concerned about it.

“Do you remember when we first met?” Lily asks, sweeping her hand to gesture the wide space around them. The rink that brought them together time and time again with the help of a few misplaced words, misplaced steps and words of congratulations. “I really thought you were a fuckboy back then.”

“You insulted ice hockey,” he says defensively. When she sends him a look, he pouts. “Okay, fine, I might’ve been a bit rude.”

“You were,” she agrees and pats his cheek. “But I suppose I beat it with the words I gave you.”

“Those are some pretty shit first words,” James says. “You should probably kiss me to apologise.”

Humming contemplatively, Lily leans forward, crimson lips puckered up attractively. Just before he can swoop down and claim them, she snaps her eyes open and smirks. “Catch me if you can,” she whispers and then twists away in a flurry of ice and red hair.

Shoulders shaking in amusement, James watches her flee. “I give you two minutes max,” he calls out and then explodes into movement.

He tears across the ice recklessly, unconcerned by his lack of padding and protection. All that matters is Lily Evans with her gummy smile and the challenging slant of her eyebrows and the way she effortlessly glides away from him. Laughter trails behind her like smoke; he breathes it in with a grin, intoxicated. The world slips away.

* * *

 

(Somewhere underneath his V-neck, black ink exclaims _Call me sweetheart again and I’ll punch you in the throat._ When he finally grabs her, Lily marks it with a bite instead.)

**Author's Note:**

> honestly i don't know where i intended to go with this once i started. like the sudden mild angst came halfway through and i was like?? so this is happening, i guess. i planned to include a lot more of sirius/remus and their story, but things didn't work out that way unfortunately.
> 
> (also let me know if you'd prefer the one shot to be broken up because i've never uploaded one this long so i understand if it's pretty daunting. i just preferred the flow when it's all together so)  
>    
> <3


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